Missing Something
by Jojo6
Summary: Sometimes you're missing more than you think. S/J. Spoilers for Fragile Balance - set two years after Season 7.


Title: Missing Something

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Not mine

Summary: Sometimes you're missing more than you think.

Season: Future – about two years beyond Season 7

Spoilers: Fragile Balance

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Groaning was never a good thing to wake up to. Particularly when it was you that was doing it.

"Carter? You awake?"

Relatively speaking. 'Awake' suggested 'alert', 'fresh' and 'ready'. She was none of those things because, goddamn, her head hurt like she'd spent a night out drinking nothing but red wine and vodka shots and sitting next to a set of blaring speakers. And this room... why was it so *white*? And so bright? Was that really necessary?

She decided it would be un-Majorly to whimper and settled for a quiet, "Yessir."

"Great! Someone to talk to!"

Well, yippee. Her head was killing her and he wanted to 'chat'. Typical. Good thing he was hot or she would have transferred years ago. "Where are we?" she asked, pushing herself upright and absently rubbing at her bare arms, which were covered in gooseflesh. It was pretty chilly, actually. Sort of... breezy. 

Oh shit.

She looked down at herself, which was always a mistake. She should have learned by now.

"Ugh," she whimpered, deciding it would be best to lie down for a little while longer. Maybe she'd pass out again and when she woke up, Daniel would have done something miraculous and got them out of there, preferably in a way that meant she woke up with clothes on and her dignity intact.

"So... this isn't really a delicate way to ask this, Carter, so I'm just going to go ahead and say it. Do stop me if you've heard it before- are you naked?"

Wonderful. Communal nakedness. *Again*. "Yup."

"Damn."

Please, don't mention the bet. Please don't mention...

"Feretti is going to make a fortune when we get back."

Oh, for Pete's sake. Did the man think of nothing else? "Sir, we're *naked*."

"Again!" the Colonel exclaimed, sounding as though he was right behind her when she actually couldn't see him. "I know! How much does this suck?"

Sam rubbed a hand over her throbbing forehead, repeating her usual mantra *Ignore him, ignore him, ignore him*. "Where are you, sir?"

"As near as I can figure, I'm in the next room over. There's a sort of window thing up there which doesn't have any glass or whatever..."

She pulled her hand away from her forehead and sat up, immediately looking for this window. She found it on the nearest wall, some five feet up. It was circular, like a port hole, and no larger than her head. It was not something she was going to try crawling through – particularly not naked. 

"... but I couldn't see you so I figured you, or Daniel or Teal'c, were out of sight or... not there."

Oh, thank God. 

Still, she shuffled closer to the wall, just in case he forgot about the whole naked part. Sure, three years ago she knew the tension would have been *brimming* but now? His reaction was more along the lines of 'Hey, Carter, you gained a couple of pounds?' and she did not want to have that conversation again.

"What do you think? Alien experimentation? Alien study? Alien imprisonment?"

All very possible situations, she agreed silently. All had happened on occasion – actually, all had happened several times in the past four months, much to the betting pool's satisfaction. It was humiliating. They were starting to get a reputation.

"Could be any of those, sir. Have they made contact?"

"Nope."

"Sir... do you have a headache?"

"No. You do?"

Not a headache, per se. More like an angry, club-waving giant that had been squished inside her skull and told to have some fun and not to worry about the neighbors. "Yessir."

"Bad?"

"Er..."

"Carter."

Damn. Not the warning voice. She refrained from sighing, because she knew that would piss him off and she'd then get the 'I'm rolling my eyes' voice which was even more irritating than the warning voice. "Yessir."

"Concussion?"

Carefully, she shifted until her back was against the wall, then she pulled her legs up in a more comfortable, and protective, position. "I don't know, sir."

"Okay. Well, there's not much we can do about it. I guess we'll just have to sit here and wait for something to happen. There aren't any exits. At least, none I can see or feel or locate."

What. A. Surprise.

"Have you got any more windows in your room? I've only got the one and it connects to yours."

She took a better look around, wincing at all the brightness. She wondered how they made it so light without having any obvious light sources. And how they'd got her into the room even though it didn't appear to have any entrances.

Then she stopped wondering. Because, frankly, it wasn't worth the time or effort. She knew full well that when it came to some more technologically superior aliens, the ones that liked to lock SG-1 up and be mysterious, she wouldn't be finding out anything until they chose to let her. 

Sam liked to think she had mellowed somewhat. Daniel liked to say she'd just learned her lesson.

Daniel was all about learning lessons.

"Oy! Carter! You know the drill – keep talking."

Oh yeah. Possible concussion. "No windows, sir."

"You sure? They're pretty difficult to spot. Everything's so white and.. .clean, looking. Maybe you should get up and walk around."

Yessir. "Do I have to?"

"Carter?"

Shit, she'd said that aloud, hadn't she? Maybe she did have a concussion – now she was getting her internal and external conversations mixed up. Never a good sign.

She pushed herself up to standing – really wishing she didn't have to – and stumbled across the room, one arm across her chest protectively. Nope. No window. In the interest of doing her duty, she walked the perimeter of the room, running a hand over the approximate height of where the other window was, making sure she wasn't missing something. "Daniel?" she called. "Teal'c? Guys?"

Waiting a few moments, she walked back to the other wall and slid down again. "Nothing, sir."

"Weird. Why do you think they'd bother with this one?"

She shrugged and pulled her legs up to her chest. Tentatively, she felt her throbbing temple and longed for her first aid kit, complete with some lovely painkillers. "How did they disable us?"

"Not a clue. We walked through the Stargate. You checked out the MALP. Daniel yammered on about something, Teal'c rolled his eyes... then I was lying on the floor here."

"Why have I got this headache?" She could probably figure that out by herself but her brain wasn't feeling terribly enthusiastic about the concept.

She could all but see him shrugging. "Maybe you got knocked on the head while you were unconscious."

She hoped so – she hoped it was something that innocent. Not like last time when the aliens had apparently *opened up her skull and had a look around*. Of course, she hadn't had a headache after that. Well, not until she got home and Janet insisted on an extra special set of examinations for them to find out that nothing had gone horribly wrong. *Then* Sam had got the headache. Possibly because Janet was just overly fascinated with the whole idea of Sam still being alive and kept going on and on at her about how lucky she was to be alive and it was really *miraculous* and could she just bend her head so the SGC med students could have a look? Please?

Lovely.

"My, you're in a chatty mood," he said sarcastically behind her.

"I have a headache."

"And now we're pouting."

"I am *not* pouting." And *ow*. No more talking loudly. 

"Carter, you ever think our relationship is going nowhere?"

"Not nowhere, sir." More like... backwards. She sighed loudly and wished she knew what the time was. They could have been down (up?) here for days and they wouldn't have known it. All her plants were probably dead. Again. She was so sick of losing her plants because of being stranded off-world.

All the teenagers at the checkout of the local garden center knew her by name, now. So embarrassing. They had to think she was a terrible gardener, which was not true. Maybe she should just stick to keeping cacti around the house and be done with it. And nothing but frozen food in the freezer... oh damn, she had leftover Chinese in the fridge from last... well, it had been yesterday but she didn't know how much time had passed.

She could only hope Janet got a chance to drop by before the Chinese broke its way out of the fridge and made friends with the kitchen appliances. 

"Carter!"

"Sir?"

"Talking! Come on. You know the concussion rules."

"I'm sure I haven't got a concussion," she said, trying to sound as un-concussed as possible. Which essentially meant she was trying not to wince as she spoke because he could always tell. "Just a headache."

"Well, just grunt every now and then, okay?"

"Okay, okay." She blew out a breath and fluttered the hair that was resting on her forehead. She needed a haircut. Again. Goddamn military regulations. Short hair was very unfashionable *again* and here she was, stuck with it. Oh well, at least it was low maintenance – at least, compared to having longer hair. Though her bad hair days were something to admire.

"Carter?" 

She grunted. 

"I didn't literally mean grunt, Major."

Well, tough, that was all he was getting. God, she was sick of this. "Does it seem like, recently, we've been doing a lot of this?"

"Sitting in rooms naked?"

"Yeah."

"More than we used to."

"I mean, I understand that, logically speaking, there will be a lot of aliens who are maybe a little confused by us. And they'll want to check us out to make sure we're not dangerous."

"But this is the fourth planet in so many weeks?" he finished for her, obviously seeing where this was going.

"Exactly."

"And Feretti's got a new car."

"Sir!" Could he not go half an hour? Half an hour? It wasn't like *he* didn't make bets on inane subjects, was it? He and Daniel made bets about her all the time, and Teal'c had recently jumped on the bandwagon. She'd started to go home on the weekends just to foil them all, though she had a feeling Daniel had caught on. He'd been buying himself a lot of new clothes recently.

"I'm just sayin'... maybe we should have a word with Thor."

"So that Feretti doesn't make a fortune each week we get naked?" She waited for the obvious innuendo to make him say something stupid purely out of nervousness... but it never came.

"Do you think that doesn't constitute an emergency?" Colonel O'Neill said instead. 

"I'm pretty sure Thor will tell you to... well, I'm sure he wouldn't be impressed."

"Thor understands my sense of humor."

Thor didn't. Thor thought Colonel O'Neill was three fries short of a Happy Meal. Thor had taken Sam aside after one mission and quietly asked if O'Neill was on any medication that their extremely accurate sensors could not detect. 

Daniel and Teal'c had both found this hilarious when she'd told them, quietly, over a lunch of tacos one afternoon. They'd decided not to share this particular gem with the Colonel for fear of some political debacle the next time they saw the Asgard. 

Politically savvy Colonel O'Neill was not. He was still miffed that Sam had gotten the 'O'Neill' blown up and was not best pleased that the ships, 'Carter', 'Jackson' and 'Teal'c', were all out there roaming around perfectly intact.

Apparently the Asgard had no plans, as of yet, for an 'O'Neill II' and her CO had no qualms about sharing his disappointment about this with Thor or any other Asgard he got his hands on.

"Carter!"

"Still awake!"

"Don't suppose you've got any cards?"

"Where would I have hidden them?" she demanded, spreading her hands to the side plaintively.

"Good point. I guess 'I Spy' is out too?"

She rolled her eyes. What? Was he four? Did he need constant entertainment? Oh yeah, how could she have forgotten? – she'd known that already. "No kidding."

"What's up with you?" he demanded, sounding somewhat offended. 

"We're stuck on an alien planet, naked, in separate rooms with no exits, I have a headache, I'm hungry, thirsty and tired – what do you *think* is up?" she snapped.

The moment she finished her rant, she closed her eyes. Oh dear. Serious lack of professionalism there. Damn. And she was so trying to avoid that sort of thing after the Christmas hockey match that Hammond had found out about.

"Sorry, Carter."

That was a new one. "It's not your fault, sir," she replied quickly. "I'm sorry for raising my voice."

"You have a perfect right to. When did we last have a break anyway?"

You know, she couldn't remember. It had to have been months ago. "Well, the last scheduled downtime we had was cancelled," she recalled, "when they shut down the SGC again."

"Oh yeah."

"And we spent three weeks getting it open again." Which had been all kinds of fun, naturally. Watching the Colonel threaten VIPs was fantastic, in a terrifying kind of way. 

"Right." 

"After that... Daniel got put in prison on PGD 289."

"So he did. Talented boy."

Considering the 'talented boy' had run into her lab only a week ago (ish), waving a gray hair in front of him, she thought it was a bit of a misnomer, but she wasn't going to point that out to her very definitely *grayed* Colonel. "And the rest of us didn't really feel like taking some time off while the diplomacy team got him out."

"True."

"The time after that I got married."

"Did I give you my congratulations?"

Oh, he would bring that up. "Yes, sir. You did. Numerous times."

"That joke got old fast, didn't it?"

She grinned, helplessly. "Very old. Very fast."

The Colonel chuckled. "Then you got a divorce."

"A speedy one." Thank God. Because 'Franko' – the Colonel's name for him – had been overly touchy-feely and she'd spent the whole four days being chased, often successfully, by him. It had been *exhausting*. "Then Dad dropped by..."

"Naturally," he interrupted quickly, as she'd known he would. He couldn't leave the Tok'ra alone without a joke at their expense. "The Tok'ra would be involved in screwing up our downtime."

"So we went off for two weeks and saved the world. Again."

"Our work is so tedious, isn't it?"

She tilted her head back and smiled at the window above her. "Very tedious, sir. And time consuming."

"There is so much paperwork involved when you save the world, have you noticed?"

"I have, yes."

"After that... Christmas."

"And we were the lucky ones on duty," Sam replied, recalling the game of hockey that had put a serious dent in her reputation as a professional. She had a feeling General Hammond had told her father, too, and she was way too old to feel chastised by her father.

"Then there was January."

"And January is always very... *January*." As in boring. Very, very boring. She didn't think they'd gone on a single mission. First there'd be the usual system overhaul, then Sam had taught at the Academy full time for about two weeks. Daniel had gone on a dig in Egypt, leaving Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c to 'catch up on paperwork'. From what she'd heard, they'd essentially sat in the mess and bitched to each other about how unfair it was that SG-10 got to go to all the sunny beach planets.

Admittedly, imagining Teal'c 'bitching' about anything was hard, but her source – Lieutenant Rattersly from SG-9 – was usually pretty reliable. 

"Then, of course, there was that thing, you know, with... oh, what's-their-names. You know. The ear people."

Ear people? "The Plagoens?"

"No, no, the other ones."

"Oh!" *Ear* people. She got it. The Barsets had that ear fixation whereas the Plagoens just had, well, larger-than-average ears. "The Barsets!"

"Yeah – those guys. That was a really *swell* mission."

Heh. Well. It had been pretty entertaining for Sam, actually. Since the traditional greeting between men and women on that planet was for the women to bite down on the men's ear. "Yes. Yes, it was."

"You better not be smiling."

He could *always* tell! How did he do that? "So, after that the whole nakedness thing began, pretty much."

"And now it's April. You know, I think we need to have a talk with Hammond when we get back."

"Definitely."

"And will you actually *take* this vacation time, Carter?" he asked slyly.

"Depends on whether or not you'll be betting on it, sir," she replied, equally slyly.

"Ah."

She decided to just grit her teeth, rather than jump in and start shouting. Though her headache had abated slightly – or perhaps she'd gotten used to it – she did not want to aggravate it further. 

"I could offer you an incentive to take your vacation."

Frankly, Sam didn't really need one. She actually *wanted* to take this vacation – presuming Hammond was amenable to the idea – but if he was going to offer her something as an encouragement, she was honor-bound to listen. "And what would that be?"

"A nice quiet place. In the middle of nowhere."

Her brow furrowed. Was he... ? No. "I don't understand."

"Minnesota to be precise."

He was! Wait... maybe he wasn't. Maybe he was just suggesting she went. By herself. After all, it had been a couple of years, at least, since he'd last asked her to go with him. "Your cabin?"

"That's the general idea."

Better find out the details. "With Daniel and Teal'c?"

"Only if they find out."

She blinked rapidly and looked around the room. "So, me and..."

"Me. Yeah." The Colonel sounded amused. "Too radical a concept, Carter?" 

So he *was* asking her. Wow. "Been a while," she said unthinkingly.

"Since what?"

"Since you asked," she replied. 

"You were never exactly receptive, Carter."

"Well, no, but that wasn't because I didn't want to go," Sam pointed out.

"Er... it wasn't?"

"Oh, come on, I never said yes because... because... you know why I never said yes."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do."

"I don't."

"You do."

"I don't!"

"How can you *not*? Think about it!" 

She was *not* telling him why she never said yes. She was not. She absolutely refused to tell him she was worried about jumping him the moment they were away from civilization. Which was so unlikely because everyone knew Minnesota was mosquito central and she was a regular mosquito banquet and she would not be in the mood to jump her CO but that wasn't the point. The point was that there had once been a definite possibility that his appeal would overcome the numerous mosquito bites and she would sleep with him.

Which would have been very, very bad.

"Oh!"

Finally. "So it wasn't that I didn't *want* to," she repeated.

"Oh!"

"You must have known that." 

He grunted. "Didn't realize I was that appealing, Carter."

"Oh please."

"No, really. I always thought you weren't interested."

Now *she* was wondering if he was on medication. Memory repressing medication. "Funny."

"I'm not joking."

"You're not?"

"I'm not."

"No way."

"Yes, way. Did the aliens turn us into teenagers?"

She snorted, even though she knew it was a deliberate distraction on his behalf to change the subject. "Again?"

"Hey, you've never been a teenager."

"Neither have you. Technically."

"Oh, please, *let's* be technical here. Sooooo... do you want to go?"

Sam made a face. Did she want to go? Yes. Should she go? "I don't know. I mean, things are different, I guess..." She stared down at her knees fixedly, ran a finger over a really attractive scab on her left one. She led such a glamorous life.

"They certainly are," he sighed, sounding a little disappointed.

"So, I mean, I'm sure it would be... yeah, I guess I want to."

"You're sure?"

Well, no, not entirely, but then she was never particularly sure of anything concerning him. That was the way it was. That, obviously, was never going to change. "Yes. I'm sure."

"So you'll come with."

"I will." Wow. That felt faintly liberating. 

"Great!"

She chuckled. Yup. Liberating. 

"Hey, Carter?"

"Yeah?"

"Did your clothes and stuff just materialize in the middle of the room?"

She jerked her head up and her eyes located the familiar clump of clothing in the centre of the room and her vest and pack. "Yes!"

"Approach them carefully, Carter!"

"Yeah, yeah, I know the drill," she muttered, hoping he wouldn't hear.

"I heard that!"

Damn. 

Sam rose up and slowly approached her clothing, feeling really, really silly about it but nonetheless following his suggestion. When she was close enough, she reached out a toe and prodded the neatly folded green and black clothes. Nothing. 

"Carter... you're not going to believe this... but I think they washed them."

Bending down, she picked up her T-shirt and lifted it to her nose. Freaky. Citrus fresh, as well. Slightly warm, as if they'd been removed from the drier or from a sunny clothing line. 

"These people are *weird*, Carter."

She was in complete agreement. But, hey, if they wanted to wash and, ohmygod, *iron* her clothes, she was fine with that. 

She pulled on everything with some relief, thinking that there was nothing better than pulling on clothes after being uncomfortably naked for some time. "That is so much better, sir," she called, tying her final shoelace.

When he didn't reply, she lifted her head, her fingers pausing over the knot. "Sir?" Tugging the knot tight, she stood up and looked towards the window. "Sir?"

No sooner had she finished the word, then she was no longer in the bright, white room. She was standing on a grassy field in front of the Stargate, her CO in front of her, her teammates on either side. 

Colonel O'Neill lifted a hand. "Right here, Carter."

Shaking her head, she looked around, reaching out to touch Daniel, who smiled and grabbed her hand. "How did I..."

"I know. No flashy light thing. Weird, huh?"

"White room? Naked?" Daniel prompted, squeezing her hand reassuringly.

"Yeah! You too?" she asked.

Daniel nodded. "Mine and Teal'c's rooms were connected." 

"So were mine and the Colonel's."

"We believe they were observing us," Teal'c said, leaning back on the heels of his feet and glancing at the Stargate. "They have obviously decided we are of no threat to them."

"Great." Colonel O'Neill pulled his sunglasses out of his vest pocket and checked that they were okay. "But, anyway, I think it's time we go home. My watch says it's the ninth and we definitely left on the fifth. No doubt Hammond is having kittens."

"What if he sent backup?" Daniel exclaimed, suddenly. "Do you think they'll have all been taken into those rooms?"

"We'll have to get home and see, then, won't we?" The Colonel jerked his head towards the DHD. "Teal'c, dial us up. Danny, you got the GDO?"

"Looks like it. You don't seem very concerned, Jack," Daniel said, looking at Jack curiously as they went to stand in front of the Stargate platform. 

"I'm hoping that if Hammond did send someone, then they'll be..."

"Colonel! Colonel O'Neill!"

The four of them turned around just as the Stargate whooshed out behind them.

"Colonel Frankson!" Colonel O'Neill called as the CO of SG-11 jogged over to the DHD. "So nice to see you! You look very... tidy."

Sam smirked – Colonel Frankson's pants did look very nicely ironed, she decided. 

"The rest of my team..."

"Will be here any moment. They're probably just getting dressed," Daniel replied, also smirking. Frankson was something of a pain in the ass. He was also one of the people involved in Feretti's 'SG-1 Gets Naked A Lot' scheme and was making a lot of money out of it. 

"Dressed?" Frankson pulled off his cap and ran his fingers through his hair, looking a little frazzled. "Colonel, Captain Brahams and I were just..."

"Sir!" came a new voice. 

Colonel O'Neill leaned a little towards Sam. "Captain Brahams, I presume," he murmured with nearly-closed lips.

Sam nodded and they watched as the Captain caught up with his CO.

"Sir, how did we get here... Colonel O'Neill! SG-1!" the Captain exclaimed, his green eyes widening suddenly.

"Why don't we save the explanations until the rest of your..."

"Sir!"

"Colonel!"

"Oh boy," Sam sighed, shuffling on the spot impatiently. She really wanted to get back to the base and have Janet administer some nice painkillers.

Behind them, the wormhole died.

"Teal'c, quick, re-dial," Colonel O'Neill ordered, turning to Teal'c with his eyebrows raised. "I want to get out of here as soon as possible."

"Indeed," Teal'c said with some emphasis. 

"Danny, GDO. Okay, PEOPLE! Listen up," the Colonel yelled, effectively silencing the somewhat confused search party. "We're going back to the SGC now, where we will explain as much as possible. That clear?"

Everyone nodded and 'yessir'd and SG-11 followed Teal'c and Daniel up towards the Stargate, walking through one by one. 

"I hope they haven't had our memorial services yet," the Colonel said thoughtfully as he followed Sam towards the wormhole.

"So do I," she said with feeling. She'd 'died' last year, after all, and that had been a pain in the ass. She'd had to renew all her credit cards, recover her house, as well as locate her father somewhere in the universe to convince him she was alive. Again. Not to mention the cover story she'd had to learn for Mark.

Landing on the other side, they were just in time for the klaxons to stop blaring and for Hammond to enter the gate room, beaming happily. "SG-1! SG-11!" he exclaimed. Then his face changed, becoming thunderous. 

Everyone in the room braced themselves. "Where the *HELL* have you been?"

Colonel O'Neill held his hands up in the air and walked through the crowd of people at the base of the ramp. "First, sir, SG-1 requests immediate downtime."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Downtime. SG-1. Two weeks. At the very *least*."

General Hammond was taken aback. "Downtime?"

"We deserve it. We've been butt-naked for four days."

A couple of the SFs snickered. Siler was laughing up in the control room.

"Hey!" Daniel announced hotly, clearly not thrilled with this reaction. "They were naked too!" He pointed to SG-11. "It wasn't just us!"

Teal'c and Sam shared a significant look. Apparently, the nakedness hadn't been lost on Daniel either. 

"Again?" Hammond asked, lowering his voice and wincing.

Colonel O'Neill rolled his eyes and threw up his hands. "Yes, again, and Carter and I worked out that none of us have had proper downtime since last *August*. So, what do you say?"

"I'll take it under consideration, Colonel," Hammond sighed, looking very weary. 

"Is that a yes?"

"It's a 'take it under consideration', Jack," the General said through his teeth, giving the Colonel a very fierce look. "Now get to the infirmary. No, wait, go shower first."

"Actually," Daniel said chirpily, "we don't smell. Which is a change, I'll admit. They washed our clothes. With something I'm not allergic to, as well." He sniffed his clothes contemplatively. "It's kind of citrusy."

"They... " Quickly, the General blinked off the urge to question all of them in the gate room. "Never mind. Infirmary. All of you."

"Yes, sir."

Sam trudged down the ramp, smiled at General Hammond, who simply shook his head at her. She ended up grinning stupidly at her CO instead, who grinned right back as they dropped their packs and handed their vests over.

Sticking his hands in his pockets, he walked by her side as they headed towards the elevators. "So... how do you feel about flying?"

"Flying?"

"To Minnesota."

Her heart gave a funny little leap that she quickly attributed to being home and being relieved and the possibility of actual free time. "We don't know if we've got downtime yet."

"Oh, we will. I'll wear him down."

Sam laughed. "I'm sure you will. Um, it depends." She touched the back of her head, wondering what kind of a state her hair was in. "Don't you have to take a lot of fishing gear up?"

"Nope. It's all there."

"Oh. Well, then I guess flying is great. It's a long drive up there, anyway."

"Cool." 

Then his eyes did that thing. That thing he'd done very infrequently to her in public and certainly not in the last couple of years. That up and down thing. The lingering, sexy, *looking* thing.

Then he looked her in the eye and smiled some more. 

That funny little leap earlier? *Nothing* to do with being home, being relieved and the possibility of actual free time.

It was totally to do with him.

Suddenly, downtime with just Colonel O'Neill was looking like a *really* bad idea. 

"Carter?" 

"Sir?"

"Get in the elevator."

She blinked and hurriedly joined him. The doors began to close and she realized that the rest of SG-1 and SG-11 weren't with them. "Where's...?"

"Other elevator. You okay? You look kind of pale?" He put his hand on the base of her spine and that damn funny little leap suddenly became an enormous *swooping* feeling low in her stomach.

In fact, Sam completely forgot about breathing.

"Carter?" He rubbed his hand up and down.

"Oh my God," she said faintly, on a whoosh of air. She turned to him hurriedly. "I can't go with you."

He narrowed his eyes. "Uh-uh. No. You can and you will. I won't take no for an answer."

"Sir!"

"Nope." Happily, Colonel O'Neill turned to look at the elevator doors. "If I have to grab you and carry you there, I'll do it."

"You don't understand..."

"Carter, come on. We're both adults. Nothing's going to happen."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing."

She blew out another breath. Of course. She was being ridiculous. They were both adults. Both responsible. Hell, they'd been doing this for nearly ten years. Nothing was going to happen. 

Absolutely nothing.

The elevators doors opened and he walked out in front of her. Sam's eyes lowered automatically, just as he turned around and caught her attempting to check out his ass.

He laughed. "Well, maybe not *nothing*."

"Sir!"

"Maybe a little something..." Colonel O'Neill turned back around and kept on walking.

"That's not funny!"

She hurried to catch up. 

  



End file.
